Intrigue about BJP move not new for SAD leader Sikandar Singh Maluka’s family as his daughter-in-law resigns as bureaucrat

On Wednesday, when Parampal sought voluntary retirement, Maluka, 74, was busy conducting village-level meetings along with Bathinda MP Harsimrat Badal in various villages of the Maur constituency. Maluka had organised programmes in the villages of Myserkhana, Kuttiwal, Yatri, Kuttiwal Khurd and many others. Last week, he was busy with SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal in the Rampura Phull area as the party’s Punjab Bachao Yatra passed through that area.

However, since the rumours of Parampal joining the BJP emerged, Maluka has not been seen in the area. His office said no public meeting was scheduled for Thursday.

It is not new for the Maluka family to be involved in controversy linked to joining the BJP. In September 2021, prior to the Assembly polls, Maluka was upset with the SAD for not giving him a ticket to contest from the Maur constituency. He was given a ticket to contest from Rampura Phull, where he had previously contested in five elections – 1997, 2002, 2007, 2012 and 2017 – and won only in 1997 and 2012.

Maluka stated he wanted his son Gurpreet, the husband of Parampal, to contest from Rampura Phull, and he wished to contest from Maur (both in Bathinda district). However, he later denied going to the BJP and reached a compromise with Sukhbir Singh Badal over a lunch meeting at Badal village. His son Gurpreet was made the party general secretary, and he agreed to contest from Rampura Phull for the sixth time, though he subsequently lost to Aam Aadmi Party’s Balkar Singh Sidhu.

Jagmeet Singh Brar, a Congress turncoat, was the SAD candidate from Maur. However, he finished third in the Assembly polls and lost his security deposit. In response to his poor performance, Sukhbir Singh Badal visited Maur and publicly apologised to the masses for mistakes made during the polls.

Maluka, first to oppose farm laws in 2020

When farm ordinances were tabled before the Union Cabinet in 2020, Maluka was the first SAD leader to oppose them, before the party took a stand a week later. Maluka is currently the chairman of the SAD’s disciplinary committee.

Maluka served as a Cabinet minister in Punjab from 2012 to 2017. He often faced criticism for his role in appointments, particularly those involving Parampal, a philosophy and zoology postgraduate who became the first woman block development panchayat officer (BDPO) in Punjab in the early 1990s.

In 2013, when SAD-BJP was in power, a file was sent to the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) for her induction as a Punjab Civil Service (PCS) officer through the nomination route. However, that file was returned.

In 2013, she worked as an additional project director in the office of the director general of school education, while Maluka served as the education minister. After a Cabinet reshuffle, Maluka was given the rural development and panchayat department portfolio, and Parampal became the district development panchayat officer (DDPO) in Bathinda in 2015.

On December 1, 2015, she was promoted to deputy director in the panchayat department. Two days later, her case was sent to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to be inducted as an IAS officer through the nomination route. During the SAD-BJP rule, she joined as a non-state civil services IAS officer on January 15, 2016, and her first posting was as additional deputy commissioner (general) in Bathinda.

Even though she joined in January 2016, she was allotted to the 2011 batch of IAS officers due to the length of her previous service. The Congress often targeted Maluka for his daughter-in-law’s appointment in the departments he governed as a minister.

In April 2016, Parampal became embroiled in controversy when she denied renewing the arms licence of former Congress minister Gurpreet Singh Kangar. Kangar, along with other senior leaders like Manpreet Singh Badal, protested outside the deputy commissioner’s office in Bathinda, alleging political vendetta. Kangar claimed that he and Maluka were archrivals and that the refusal to renew the licence was a result of this rivalry.